LORD OF THE BAND
by patronus-wolf
Summary: a slightly humerous, dark story modeled after Lord of the Flies. After a band bus is crashed into the remote wilderness, the band and colorguard must survive from nature, the elements, and themselves. CH 3 UP
1. The Dazed and the Dead

LORD OF THE BAND  
~patronuswolf  
  
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CHAPTER ONE  
  
James was furious at the tears streaming from his eyes, and wiped them away in a hurried action almost punching himself in the face. Zach was crouched in front of the front seat, almost crying for something to do. He never was one to sit idly, but he had to now, when so many of the people he was supposed to lead were on the life or death trail of a runaway bus. He threw a scared look at James, with strangely calm and wide eyes. Zach eyed the mutilated emergency brake, broken from one hurried and desperate attempt after another, yet again James pulled at the black knob frantically, but was without disappointment when it failed. It was harder for Zach to block out the soft crying of his band members in the back even than the closer more urgent and frantic screams of the colorguard and flute section. He held onto it like a dream, averted from all else, until that moment. James saw the chance and jumped on it. He stood up off the seat, and put what little effort he had left into steadying the trajectory. He sat back down, shouted something to the mass of wrenching bodies behind him - which all became immediately silent - lowered his head into his and braced himself.  
SLAM.  
  
Every single person was crammed up against the opposite side of their seat, a hundred bodies crunched up and broken that fell in between the seats and into the isle, but generally unharmed. While after a moment people began lifting their heads and looking around, hoping their fears of the worst were unabated, Jean was crawling ahead through the people, never averting her eyes from her goal. She pushed and slunk, saying exhausted sorries to every individual member of the bus, till she reached the few seats left, overflowing with teary colorguard members, all crouched low and almost glad with having an excuse to hold each other. Here, Jean screamed more in an attempt to part the mass than to what she saw next, which was more than a scream than the petrified look of fear. Behind her was another girl, who caught her, and told her to breathe, and while Jean gulped down delicious breaths of air, her own chest was on fire from the lacking.  
James was thrown up against the steering wheel, his arms still under his head in such a way he looked like he was asleep, driven to rest his tormented mind after the weight of all these lives had been lifted. While his split lip dribbled dark blood all down his arms, the worse of the damage inflicted to him was the broken bone in his forearm, and the bruise on his skull from inflicting it. Jean pushed him back into the seat at an incline, and rested his head on her shoulder while she looked at him and cried. Zach had had the worst luck of the draw, and with nothing to hold onto in time, he had been thrown forward into the dashboard and his chin thrown into the air. His unconscious body fell down the small stairs where his soft head was again slammed into the glass doors which at the same time had shattered and sent little pieces of glass into his neck and back, so that he was partially impaled on the door.  
The members in the back were rushing steadily toward the front, for it was their two who were up here, pushing out the colorguard who had just pieced together what happened and were trying to get there first to help out the two and likewise gain their affection. These two were the backbones of the band, the leaders, one official and the other one who had an authority over many from his experience and twisted humor. And while their friends desperately tried to reach them first, it was the inadept guard who had blocked the from reach. Ray's closest friend was up there dying, and she hated the colorguard with a passion. With no patience, she began throwing them out of the way, and unless they yield to her receive a punch in the face. The rest of the 'cool' bandmemberes trailed in her wake, observing the destructive power of their friend in a life or death situation.  
Tears everywhere, Ray tripped over herself and got down to Zach, every second drowning away her hopes along with precious time itself. She kicked open the door after several tried, and picked up Zach and carried him out. He was much bigger than she, but the newfound strength made her forget that under his weight, physical and emotional, her arms and knees where going to break, her lungs were on fire, her head swimming and back twisting into a horrible knot. Yet she stood there, walking away from the wreck a few seconds later, and crying at his body where the placed it. She cherished the few moments alone with him and cried loudly until the rest of the band came swarming around with gasps and chokes.  
Suddenly there was a dark screen around them, and they all turned around to see their bus filling with smoke, now abandoning Zach and Ray to their material things. Ryan knew how stupid he was, for remaining on the bus, but now he opened all the windows and was throwing every backpack, gym bag, clothing item and instrument case he could find out the right side windows. He did this on the relative back of the bus, therefore the colorguard ran on and gathered all their little things from the front and throwing them off in a likewise manner.  
Ryan's friends were yelling at him frantically to get the hell out of there, as the smoke was consuming, but also he was receiving shouts from those else to not forget their stuff, who were subsequently punched by the friends. They gathered outside the window when he had finished, and he lowered himself out of the height window carefully with an effort, and after he placed his feet into the hands of awaiting members he shot a look back into the bus and saw something which made him stop. A glove. Or was it a hand with a glove on it? the arm, or what would have been was covered by the shadows and smoke, and he shouted, "Is there anyone missing?" While everyone looked around slowly, he screamed as loudly as he could, "IS ANYONE MISSING!?!" With no response he used those hands as a push off, kicking off at an arm that tried to pull him back out, and which tremendous effort, pulled himself back into the bus.  
He fell back into the bus with a tumble, smacking his face head on into the side of a seat, and after a few seconds in that position he fell on to his back. This was calming, he thought. He could just go to sleep. He closed his eyes but at the last second, there was the glove. Now with a dazed curiosity he moved forward to it and touched it, and the glove held his hand. He pulled it off and a small hand appeared, and he pulled on it to reveal a small girl, the alto sax, well, the good one, and pulled her out from under the seat. She looked dizzy and confused also, but there was a certain fear in her eyes, and Ryan saw this and took her up in his arms, and being unable and unmotivated to move much, they were content to die. Outside, They began to throw rocks at the windows, and it woke them up into this vivid reality, dark and dull and now frantic, as the screams outside became. The good air left was being sucked out the window, making a clear pathway and they fallowed the wind. Weak and faraway, each simply fell out of the window into awaiting arms, coughing and sputtering.  
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note: this is only a rough draft...i wrote it the second i got up, so its  
subject to change..._lots_ of change 


	2. The Sound of the Whistle

CHAPTER 2: The Sound of the Whistle  
  
In the center of a small field, a couple hundred paces wide, a ripple of dead and dying pale orange and flesh colored grasses and weeds exploded out, followed by small bushes and trees that grew into the to the great redwood forests down to the south, and at last the far off mountains of dark red the last that could be seen by naked eyes.  
  
The southern forest stretched for miles down the coast, and only one small piece of beach jutting out at the southeast end of the peninsula was able to be seen. Later a trail was made from the field between where the forests parted down through the cliffs to the beach.  
  
In the center of a small beach, a couple hundred paces wide, the ripple of sand threw small pieces of dead and dying grasses and seaweed toward the gentle cliffs, tall redwoods loomed over the edge, their internal eyes of small creatures peered curiously through tall branches and holes covered by dead bark at the new inhabitants gathering in a forest above and behind the beach. The field and the beach were synonymous to the band members, as the only two inhabitable areas, good and bad each for its separate reasons.  
  
The air was damp and the ground was cool, and high at the northeast corner of the field where the grass met the trees stood a single mound, laden with sticks and stones, and written into the dirt next to it the name, "Chris."  
  
No one had ever liked this particular percussionist, for his eccentric and annoying nature, except one girl, who had liked his face. She remembered when she had been just the very same as he, and now she had grown into a beloved band member, and had pity on the misunderstood and shunned. She stood alone at his shoddy grave, fixing here and smoothing there, till her face lifted to the air and she heard 3 sharp blasts from a whistle, and every other, who had been off exploring the land, or tending to a hurt soul, or rummaging though what belongings had been saved, lifted up their heads, and came curiously to the whistle.  
  
In the center of the field James stood on his tuba case, piled around were all the other instruments salvaged from the underneath the wreck. He drew 3 bold blows on the whistle again, till enough came to look like a majority of the band. In fact every single member was there, minus one percussionist, and the absence was from those hiding, or afraid, or crying in a shadowed corner behind a friend or buried deep in the tall grass.  
  
James looked the whistle, held it in his palm, then looked over the crowd of solemn faces. He removed his sunglasses from his clean cut face, drew in a deep breath from the very depths of his lungs and shouted:  
  
"This is not mine." He held up the whistle clutched in his right, unbroken hand. Only the string could be seen dangling from his tight fist. "This is the drum major's." He shot a look in the corner where Zach was standing, looking up at him. He smiled sadly from the corner of his mouth. James looked forward and continued. "This is the symbol of authority. You all will listen to it and obey it. This will be just like practice, except no more screwing around, 'cause now we have lives in the balance." He swallowed hard. "Someone has died already. Well, two, if you count the bus driver. I don't know how long we're gonna be stuck here, but if we want to get out of here, we have to listen to authority. And Zach is that authority. But for the time being, he has let me speak. Ok, listen up. Were going to have rules. The same rules as before. Seniority is a giving."  
  
Somewhere in the crowd the colorguard captain raised her voice in protest. James shot her a cold look and shouted again, "SENIORITY is a given. And I don't want any crap about it." Judy crossed her arms at him and pouted. "Serves you right, bitch!" Ray whispered to some others with a laugh. Ray had pulled out her bari sax case and sat on it, with a grin a mile wide, next to Renee who gave up on her round tenor case and made a spot on Ray's, and Chelsea who had pulled out her alto sax and climbed and sat onto it lengthwise to make her several feet taller.  
  
"That's all to say now...so...go back to whatever you were going."  
  
While everyone got up, one hand was left in the air. James turned back around with an annoyed, "Yes?"  
  
"Where are we gonna sleep?" The little clarinet stood up and wringed her hands.  
  
"I don't know, we'll get to that later."  
  
She opened her mouth to say something again, but then pulled her mouth shut and slunk away.  
  
* * * * *  
  
James hurried back to Zach, with several others.  
  
"What the hell are we going to do?" James reclined on a snare case next to Zach, who was leaning forward elbows on knees with his hands clasped around his drumsticks nervously, a band shirt wrapped over his neck and upper back. He continued to look down.  
  
Chelsea sat closslegged and camouflaged in the long grass. "Hows the bus?" she asked James.  
  
"We opened the windows but its still smoky...I don't if its more dangerous to sleep out in the open or to risk a night's worth of smoke and crap baking in your lungs. What's around here anyway?"  
  
Zach spoke up. "What about those cliffs down by the beach? Has anyone gone and taken a good look at them?"  
  
"They're not real steep," Mary said, fingering a quick song on her clarinet. "And its just bare rock. Really nothing."  
  
Everyone looked at each other. "Ok...so we've got this field, a bunch of trees, a beach and some cliffs?" Gary asked.  
  
They all shrugged affirmatively. "Well I vote for the bus then." He picked up his clarinet case and backpack and flung them in the general direction. "Anyone else?"  
  
"Shoot, I don't know what else to do!" Zach said overwhelmed.  
  
"Oh come on, you can swear...just say it. Where not at school anymore."  
  
"But we are in uniform."  
  
"Only half way. Its not a true uniform without the jacket."  
  
"So what?"  
  
"Nevermind."  
  
Gary picked up his junk and walked to the bus. It was not covered in leaves and sap from the tree in front of it on the west edge of the field on the forest's border. The doors were broken open and unable to be closed.  
  
They all waked toward the wreck and gave it a good look. Brian tapped it with his fist a few times. "It was a good bus."  
  
"And now it's got to be a good home." Gary said from a window. "Its still smoky in here a bit, but its not too bad. Id rather be coughing than frozen. Its getting really cold at night, you guys. This is the only way."  
  
"How are we gonna fit all these kids lyin down in one bus?"  
  
Renee reflected for a second. One to a seat, then theres enough room on the floor under the seats for the tall kids since where wont be any feet, then if we really need to we can send some down underneath with the cases." She smiled and punched Chelsea in the arm. "We can put all the little ones on the back dashboard."  
  
"Hey shutup." Chelsea smiled. She looked down and asked, "Can I have seniority over the sophomores? I mean I know ive only been in band for 2 years, but I am a junior...you know I wont abuse it or anything."  
  
Zach smiled. "Ill think about it."  
  
Ryan looked around. "Its getting dark. And cold. And I bet everyones getting hungry. What about a fire? We can have it right there, if we clear it out."  
  
"Go get some wood then."  
  
Ryan obeyed and then turned around halfway.  
  
"Hey Zach...what about assigning jobs to people, you know, so things can get done?  
  
"Hey yeah!" Said Mary. "I call being in charge of food!"  
  
"Hey, no! That's goin to the most trusted person here. Hey, James...you and the low brass get food duty." Zach tossed him a branch.  
  
"Dammit, don't make everyone coming to me askin for stuff...aww damnit, Zach!" He laughed at him in a downhearted way.  
  
"Ok then. Ryan. Go get wood."  
  
"Sir, yes, sir!" He smiled widely and walked along the edge of the forest, picking up large branches and handing them so the several who came along with him. He listened to the whistle calling every member, watched the boys run back with the wood and a giant bonfire being created in the pit next to the bus, like a beacon of hope from so far away where Ryan was standing. Chelsea stood beside him with a armful of wood, feeling the same warmth from a fire that was so far away. He turned and led them back and brought the wood toward the flame, taller than he was, and the entire band stood looking upon it, consuming and lighting their hopes and survival simultaneously, the signal fire for a new beginning.  
  
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Note: for a _very_ crude map - (ww.deviantart.com/deviation/4020308/) 


	3. Section Leaders and Ash

CHAPTER 3: Section Leaders and Ash  
  
The night was colder than expected. Everyone was afraid to turn the bus heaters on, not just for fear itself, but also maybe they might be able to use what little energy they had left in this last greatest asset they had - their shelter. While few took the freezing temperatures as an excuse to bunk up with their favorite band or guard member, most simply wanted their own place, and while spacing was limited, the guys graciously took the floor underneath the seats (as they were too small anyway) and the aisles, and gave the girls the choosiest beds. Chelsea and the freshman clarinet, the smallest two in the band, were shoved into the hutch in the back, above the engine, the widest but also coldest as it was right beneath the window. Although uniforms were savorously warm in this kind of cold, everyone chose to wear their travel uniforms of a band shirt and jeans and a jacket, and spare their uniforms for the hope of using them again after they found there way out of here. Extra blankets reserved for frozen bleachers were passed around, and most given to the guys to share on the floors. The girls looked repeatedly looked down in the middle of the night and smiled with hushed 'aww!'s at the tough guys who in search of warmth had accidentally curled up around each other. In the morning, they woke up at the handful of girl's faces staring at them, and one pushed violently away the other who consequently woke up and threw a shoe back at his face.  
Suddenly there was a little squeal and Amy whispered loudly and urgently, "How do we go to the bathroom?!?"  
"How about in your flute?" Said a guy behind her, receiving a kick in the face a few seconds later.  
Zach's head popped up from under a seat. "Any ideas, anyone?"  
Silence.  
"Are you all seriously that thick?" James sat up from an isle. No one answered. "Never mind. Ill go back to sleep then." He replaced his sunglasses and lied back down.  
"What is it, James?" Zach said in a yes-you've-won-just-tell-us tone.  
"Ocean," he shouted without moving.  
"Ok, you all go down by the water. Figure out something."  
Several disgusted gasps and an 'oh my god!' were heard from the front of the bus, where mainly the colorguard and flute section stayed, the girly girls of the bunch.  
"Deal with it." Everyone went back to sleep. Amy ran screaming from the bus, and the rest of the front dreaded their next call.  
Later mid-morning, a few were sitting up, waiting for the general wake up call and instruction on what to do next. Zach took up his whistle and got up painfully. He motioned for them to wake up the rest and when everyone was up, he blew the whistle softly to get them accustomed. At the front of the bus, he shouted:  
"Everyone out. We're having a meeting right near the pit. Now."  
Several minutes later, everyone was gathered outside around the fire pit next to the bus, with James' tuba case pulled up as the permanent new platform, Zach blew the whistle in the halt command, to signal complete silence, and began.  
"We can't send any one out to look for help. The forests are too deep and someones gonna get lost and die out there. As long as we're all together, we can survive here. But everyone's got to help. That's why I'm assigning jobs. Every section will have a task to do everyday, and I mean EVERYDAY, to keep this all going. Shirking from anything can mean death. Again." He grit his teeth and closed his eyes. "I've already let one of my percussionists die. But I will not let it happen again. But you all need to help here. Got it?"  
There was general nodding, along with some heaving sighs and swallowing.  
"Ok listen up. We'll need wood for the fire, so I give that to the sax section, since they have the fewest members and it needs the least people. Everyday you need to go get wood and leave it here next to the pit. Make sure the pile is always about as tall as Brian."  
"Next, we need some fresh water. Everyone's just about gone, right? No one brought extra bottled water, did they? So what do we do?"  
"We boil sea water." Justin said quietly.  
"And only get salt left?" Zach asked.  
"We let the condensation gather on something, then have it pour into something else and drink it." Renee added.  
"We have no pots to boil it in."  
"Fire but no pots."  
"What about an instrument?"  
"You really want to destroy an instrument?"  
"Better than dyin'."  
"But who?"  
"I don't think it's a matter of who would give up their instrument than using one that would work, and Im sorry to say I think the only one that could work is the tuba." Chelsea sighed.  
"Don't be sorry." James smiled.  
"Well, we'd have the bend it into more of a dip so it can hold water," Laura said, "and prop it up so we can have a fire underneath, and it would condensate on the top and run down into the instrument. Except we'd have to get it out by the..."  
"Oh god no."  
"Please, don't say it. We know what it is."  
"I don't..." piped the little clarinet.  
Lucy turned around. "They mean you'd have to drink out of the spit valve."  
Half the band made gagging noises. "Yeah well when you're all dying of thirst," Lucy told them apathetically, "you'll be glad as hell to have it."  
Zach pressed his eyes closed and continued. "We'll to get enough you'd have to be doing it all day. Which section has the most members? On second thought, just, all the section leaders come up here."  
Renee was pushed up by the saxes, Lucy made her way through the flutes, Laura the clarinets, Julie the trumpets, and Zach, being Drum lieutenant stayed put.  
"James..." Zach gave him a semi-serious look. "You're not exempt."  
"Didn't say I was. I can represent from right here, thank you." He reclined against his the side of his case with Jean in his arms.  
"Ok," Zach began. "Which section has the most members?"  
"Uh, you forgot the colorguard." Judy stepped up with her hands on her hips.  
"No, we didn't." Ray started.  
"You aren't included here."  
"Im the president of the band. And we don't trust you."  
"Im colorguard captain."  
"Judy, just get up here." Zach shook his head. "Ray, they're gonna hafta work too. Just let um."  
"Only for you."  
"Ok, now, who has the biggest section? I mean, who the most members?" Zach asked again, annoyed.  
"Either the flutes or the guard."  
"Ok, flutes, you got water duty. Every second of the day I want water boilin-"  
"The colorguard is bigger than the flute section."  
"Im getting to you!"  
Judy glared.  
"Anyway, Every second of the day I want water boiling in the tuba, and let it collect on the top and run off through the bell, and have something to collect at the spit valve. You might want to do a test run first, to get all the crap out of there an stuff..."  
"What are you implying?" James laughed.  
"That you're a dirty son of a bitch, James." Everyone had a good laugh.  
Zach blew the air out of his lungs. "Ok, what next? Anyone?"  
"We're running out of food, Zach." Mary alerted them. "We all, well, most of us brought food, but only a few snacks, and we've got barely nothing now."  
Zach looked around. "What are we gonna do about this?"  
They all reflected.  
"Whats in the forest?" Julie asked.  
"Wood."  
"Trees."  
"Dirt."  
"I didn't see any animals."  
"'S not like we could catchum anyway."  
"Shit..."  
"Um...what about fish? Is there any down by the beach?"  
"If we had a 50 foot long pier, or a boat, or fishing gear..."  
"Well," Zach said defeated, "I guess there's no other choice than to save all the food we have and ration it until we figure out what to do. I'm gonna leave that to the low brass. I trust you guys." Ryan the trombone and Floyd the baritone smiled. James looked asleep. "After the meeting, everyone bring all the food you have left to them. Please. We have no other options." He looked at them over the ashes flying up from the pit. "What next? Oh yeah, colorguard, I have a job for you...you girls can clean out the bus every morning. You leave the most mess in there anyway."  
The entire band almost burst into cheering, but it fearfully died into a soft laughter as Judy turned around and shot them all a murderous look. She grabbed her right hand girls and stomped off in silence.  
"Now that that...unpleasenentness...is taken care of, theres the fire. Its gonna get cold all day now, so we need someone to keep it going all day, and possibly at night too. Clarinets, im gonna put you in charge of that. And now, the most important job of all, --"  
"You said that about the food,"  
"And the water-"  
"Those are too, but this is really import-"  
"Like?"  
"Just shut up for a second and I'll tell you! Trumpets...I want you to think of some way to go out and search for a road or a path or something, anything. You have to go out and get us rescued."  
Julie looked stunned. "You're putting these morons in charge of your being rescued?" she waved to her right.  
"Hey, you're our leader. And that's why im sitting on this side of you." Mark looked indifferent.  
"I thought we were trying to _not_ get people killed here."  
"What's your point? If they run off and get lost its better for everyone, right?" Mark laughed.  
"Yah, but I'm gonna be held responsible!" Julie said.  
"Ohh..." Mark suddenly looked more serious.  
"So what do we do? Me and the idiot pack here'll run into the forest and run around for a little while..."  
"You have no shame, do you?" Chelsea smiled.  
Julie fell over laughing.  
"We have no rope, we have no flares, no weapons, hey, but we do have instruments..." Mark continued.  
"So drag some sticks behind you and follow the lines back. Just make sure its not raining or windy or something. And if you get lost, just blow yur trumpets. We'll pull out the bari and guide you home." Ryan suggested.  
"Done and done." Julie looked satisfied.  
"So now what? Anything else?" Zach asked the crowd of wandering eyes.  
"I think not."  
"Ok then. We'll get to it when it comes. Band Dismissed." Zach stepped down, wiped his head with the back of his arm, and replaced the whistle back around his neck. 


End file.
